Practice question · True or false
All reversible engines operating between the same two reservoirs have the same efficiency, whatever their working substance.
Hints
- This is the content of Carnot’s theorem.
- Substance-independence is what allows a thermodynamic temperature scale to be defined.
Show the answer
True
Why
True. Carnot’s theorem makes the efficiency depend only on the two temperatures. That substance-independence is precisely what lets define an absolute temperature scale with no material reference.
Practise Cyclic Processes and the Carnot Cycle
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